These ingredients are proteins that you can either avoid or look for, depending on your hair type. Some is good for the hair diet, especially damaged hair. However, normal hair, or protein sensitive hair could begin to feel stiff, frizzy, and dry, indicating your hair is getting too much protein.
A humectant absorbs moisture and keeps a moisture balance in the hair and skin. Humectants will search for moisture in your own hair too. Therefore, in areas where it may be hot, but dry, these products may actually do more bad than good. In the right condition, humectants are materials used in products to moisturize dry or damaged hair.
These ingredients bind with metal ions or metallic compounds and prevent them from adhering to your hair. They work to detox your hair from mineral and potentially toxic metal build up. Products with these ingredients should be used sparingly - up to once a month.
These ingredients are cleansing agents that could potentially be drying, but are not as harsh as sulfates.
These ingredients are gentle cleansers that you want to look for. (More info...)
Film forming humectants are excellent moisturizing ingredients that form a film over the hair and will help resist dehydration. These ingredients are safe to use in low dew points. (More info...)
These ingredients originate from plants (herbs, roots, flowers, fruits, leaves or seeds) and provide a wide variety of benefits including: cleansing, stimulating, nourishing, refreshing, soothing, moisturizing, normalizing and deodorizing. Botanical ingredients may appear in other categories if they serve a specific purpose to the curly girl method (More info...)
Preservatives are added to products to prevent the growth of micro-organisms.
These ingredients have been verified as having no affect on curly hair and include ingredients like water, antioxidants, emulsifiers and thickeners
These ingredients have been verified as having no affect on curly hair but could be irritating to skin or have other negative effects. Please do more research on these ingredients to see if they will work for your individual needs
These ingredients are either OK to use, or weren't an exact match for those to avoid.